1. Field of the Invention
Similarly to the above pending application, this invention pertains to game boards for playing games of skill and chance, such as bingo, keno, and lottery. In particular, this invention pertains to bingo boards which facilitate manual marking of bingo cards. However, unlike the above pending application, the present invention concentrates on nonelectronic methods that facilitate manual marking of bingo cards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Reusable bingo cards/boards (often called hard bingo boards), such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,165,878, 4,084,823, 3,984,107, 3,909,001, and 3,731,935 are widely used in bingo halls because they are relatively inexpensive and durable. However, hard bingo boards can not be as easily marked as the paper bingo cards. The usual method of marking a hard bingo card involves either placement of a manual marker (such as a color plastic chip) on top of each called bingo number that is imprinted on the hard bingo board, or shutting/opening of a sliding window in the hard bingo board. Placing markers and/or opening and closing the windows slows down the game compared to daubing paper bingo cards with by a dauber. In addition, the hard bingo boards are relatively insecure because they can be easily replaced in the middle of the game by a dishonest player.
Numerous attempts have been made to improve hard bingo boards. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,455,025, and 4,624,462 disclose an electronic bingo indicator board overlaid by a transparent hard bingo board. However, electronics makes this type of board more complex and costly than nonelectronic/mechanical hard bingo boards. Nevertheless, utilization of electronics provides an opportunity to increase accountability of transparent hard bingo boards by utilization of various data card reading techniques as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,455,025, 4,624,462, 4,372,392 and 4,863,173.